Rufus Wainwright, and Many Other Things
April 25, 2008
The Yay
Emma and Dani were sprawled out on the bed in Dani’s room snorting cocaine with a one hundred dollar bill and a small mirror that had once belonged to Dani’s pink jewelry box. The kind with the ballerina that you had to wind; when the box opened, the ballerina would twirl around and around to The Russian Dance from The Nutcracker. Bones protruded from Dani’s hip through her translucent skin, and her gaunt face sagged. Her piercing blue eyes were dulled by thick black eyeliner, and the heavy bronzing makeup coating her face obscured her wan teenage skin. Dani took a big hit and laid back on her simple white bed, sniffling loudly and pawing at her nose.
by Kate Segal on
Servicing the Nation
Several weeks ago, a number of students received an email about a group of Bronx middle school students who wanted to visit Princeton. The idea was simple: at-risk students might be motivated to stay in school if they could see the fruits of years of academic labor. Unfortunately, only a few days before the slated visit, we received another email. The students could no longer visit Princeton because of budget cuts. At this announcement, the school threw up its hands in dismay and declared that there was nothing to be done to help these kids.
by Melissa Lerner on
Grade ‘F’
One must credit the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed for stretching such a pathetic stock of original material into 90 minute feature. Given how preposterous intelligent design is, Ben Stein probably gave the most sympathetic account possible of how a handful of researchers defending it were ejected from their respective Universities. He did not, however, provide persuasive evidence for how evolutionary theory led to eugenics, racism, Communism, fascism, abortion, and a host of other evils that are either directly or indirectly referenced.
by Benedict Baerst on
Sex Columns Can Suck My Dick
Late one night last weekend, waiting in the checkout line at Frist, an individual approached me to say that he was of the notion that I was the author of the anonymous “Ask A Girl” column that had recently debuted in the pages of the Nassau Weekly. It’s a strange feeling, being framed. Because no matter how utterly NOT the author of this article I am, the mere speculation draws from the ether an imaginary ghost-me, with ghost intentions, leaving splotches of invented ectoplasm on laptop keys I never pressed when never sitting smirkily in my dorm room, midnight hour, writing a column that the real me- flesh, bone and conviction- simply does not believe in.
by Rebecca Gold Gold on
Prince Watch
Dear Readers, This has not been a good month for The Daily Princetonian. Honestly, we almost feel bad for them. There was the PUDS fiasco, the misreporting of college council budgets, and, just this week, they ran a story with … Read More
by staff on
Trivial Pursuits
Inevitably and with curious necessity, the recitation of trivia turns to the subject of death-counts. This is because the death-count is the ne plus ultra of trivia: “how many people died there.”
by Hal Parker on
John Wheeler
“Black hole.” “Wormhole.” These are terms familiar to any English speaker if not from science fiction literature and films, then at least from pinball machines and arcade games. For a generation raised on Star Wars they have become all too familiar, yet they have not been around for very long. Both the two terms and the theory behind them were coined by one man – the late Princeton Professor Emeritus John Wheeler – in the late 1950s and 60s.
by Masha Shpolberg on
From Russia, With Accents
If anyone can pull off the role of satirical, socio-political prophet and shnooky belletrist, it’s Gary Shteyngart. The author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan, Shteyngart is one of the punchiest and funniest young novelists out there. His writing, colored and coarsened by the blunt cynicism of his 1970s upbringing in the Soviet Union, draws on intricate tessellations of classic Russian literature, self-deprecating Semitic humor, and current global politics. Being a Jew born in 1972 in the anti-Semitic Soviet Union and having immigrated to Queens in 1979, he has achieved status as a perpetual outsider, who can observe from remove and criticize with greater perspicacity.
by Max Kenneth on
Waxing (and Waining) Poetic
Rufus Wainwright performed at McCarter Theatre last Saturday. It was a gorgeous weekend all around, though less so as Saturday waned and Sunday’s clouds arrived unfashionably early. I freely admit to never having heard a lick of Rufus Wainwright’s recorded music. Wainwright’s is one of those singer-songwritery names that lurks around the back of my mind with “Ben Folds,” “Duncan Sheik,” “Jeremy Enigk,” and “Mason Jennings.” Such a name, Sheik.
by Raymond Zhong on
In Search of Lost Love
To side with Anscombe, or not to side with Anscombe: in regards to the controversial chastity debate, that seems to be the question flitting around campus conversations these days. For most, the question remains a simple one. After all, the dialogue – Anscombe versus the Rest of Campus – has been marked by a noticeable backlash mentality, sprung from personal offense and strong, if biased, conviction. But, dare I ask, when it comes to the assertion that chastity is a “way to find a much more fulfilling relationship,” does the conversation go beyond the simple, “Yes, of course” and “Hell, no” responses that the argument has elicited?
by Elizabeth Winkler on
Newman’s Day D-Ball
We here at the Nass have more experience with our own balls than the kind you play sports with (sometimes the fine line between intellectual masturbation and actual masturbation sort of disappears).
Blazin’ for Buckley
Thirty-seven years ago a group of stoners at a California high school had a dream that they could smoke weed every day after school at a regular time. With the precision and commitment rare to their kind, they carved out a slice of late afternoon (and probably beyond), dedicating it to the illegal indulgence they share with an estimated 100 million Americans. If Wikipedia is to be believed (and really, for the scholarly subject of stoner cultural history, why shouldn’t it be?), this 1971 San Rafael High School tradition was the bong that launched a thousand hits. 4:20 P.M. daily outside the cafeteria evolved into the ‘High Holiday’ of 4/20.
by Phyllis Fogg on
Porn for the Blind
In our modern age, technology has made it so that the visually impaired are able to partake in many of the same activities as anyone else. Text-to-speech programs, which narrate a website, make it easy to browse the web. There … Read More
by staff on
Gleefully Mendelssohn
The Princeton Glee Club has been around since 1874, and it shows. This past weekend, while students flocked to productions such as “Clue” (the Musical?!) and “Arabian Nights,” the Glee Club performed Felix Mendelssohn’s epic oratorio, Elijah, in Richardson Auditorium, to an audience of senior citizens and music majors.